Remember when everyone thought PayPal’s Honey browser extension was just a harmless way to save a few bucks? Turns out things weren’t as simple as they seemed. What started as a helpful coupon tool quickly turned into a full-blown scandal when creators discovered that Honey was allegedly hijacking their affiliate commissions.
Honey, which PayPal bought for $4 billion in 2020, was accused of secretly swapping influencers' affiliate links with its own. That means content creators who promoted products with their own commission links might have had those links overridden by Honey, funneling the money straight to PayPal instead. This sparked outrage, especially since some of these same influencers had previously been sponsored by Honey.
The situation blew up when YouTuber MegaLag dropped a bombshell video exposing Honey’s alleged practices.
Now, following the controversy, Google has updated its policies for Chrome extensions, making it clear that sneaky affiliate link injections won’t be tolerated. One major change requires that any affiliate program be described prominently in the product’s Chrome Web Store page user interface before installation.
Google also tightened its rules on when and how extensions can modify links. According to the new policy:
Affiliate links, codes, or cookies must only be included when the extension provides a direct and transparent user benefit related to the extension’s core functionality.
In other words, if an extension adds an affiliate link, it needs to provide something in return, like a discount, cashback, or donation. Simply injecting links without user interaction or benefit is now explicitly banned.
To drive the point home, Google laid out some specific examples of what’s no longer allowed:
- Inserting affiliate links when no discount, cashback, or donation is provided.
- An extension that continuously injects affiliate links in the background without related user action.
- An extension that updates a shopping-related cookie without the user’s knowledge while the user is browsing shopping sites.
- An extension that appends an affiliate code to the URL or replaces an existing affiliate code in the URL without the user’s explicit knowledge or related user action.
- An extension that applies or replaces affiliate promo codes without the user’s explicit knowledge or related user action.
So far, Google and PayPal have kept quiet about the policy change, with no official statements or explanations. Meanwhile, Chrome itself has been in the spotlight for other reasons. You probably heard about Google pulling the plug on uBlock Origin and other MV2-based extensions. If that caught you off guard, we’ve got a workaround guide to help you get it back.
And on the legal side, the Department of Justice is still pushing for a court order to force Google to sell off Chrome.
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